1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information storage medium called an IC card, which incorporates an IC (Integrated Circuit) chip having, e.g., control elements such as a CPU, ROM, RAM, EEPROM, and the like. Furthermore, the present invention relates to an information storage medium processing apparatus called an IC card reader/writer, which records data on such information storage medium and reads out data from the information storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
IC cards are used in various fields not only for settlements of business transactions such as credit cards, commuter passes, and the like, but also as ID cards such as employee ID cards, membership cards, insurance cards, and the like. This is because the IC cards can implement various functions since they comprise control elements such as a CPU, ROM, RAM, EEPROM, and the like, and are hard to forge to greatly improve security, compared to conventional magnetic cards.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2002-342734 discloses a technique associated with an IC card. The IC card operates based on commands transmitted from an external apparatus (IC card reader/writer). For example, upon reception of a command transmitted from the external apparatus, the IC card confirms if the received command is a command registered in a command control table. If the received command is a registered command, the IC card executes processing based on the received command, and returns response data.
ISO/IEC14443 specifies a communication protocol between the command data and response data. That is, ISO/IEC14443 specifies a communication protocol required when a non-contact-IC card reader/writer transmits command data to a non-contact IC card, the non-contact IC card receives the command data and executes processing corresponding to the received command data, and the non-contact IC card returns a processing result as response data to the non-contact IC card reader/writer.
Upon reception of data that does not comply with the ISO/IEC14443 communication protocol, the non-contact IC card falls into a non-response state since it cannot execute processing corresponding to the received data. When the non-contact IC card receives data complying with the ISO/IEC14443 communication protocol but cannot reconstruct the received error due to some communication error, the non-contact IC card also falls into a non-response state since it cannot execute processing corresponding to the received data.
The non-contact IC card reader/writer waits for response data from the non-contact IC card until an elapse of a maximum reception waiting time, which is set in advance, and determines a non-response error after the elapse of the waiting time. That is, when the non-contact IC card falls into a non-response state, as described above, the non-contact IC card reader/writer determines a non-response error after the elapse of the maximum reception waiting time, resulting in inefficiency.